This invention relates to seat assemblies for motor vehicles and the like, and more particularly to a pivoting seat cushion arrangement for vehicle seat assemblies.
Ingress into and egress from motor vehicles such as passenger cars, station wagons, vans and the like, can be a difficult task, especially for individuals with movement impairments due to disability, illness, or advanced age. A number of arrangements have been proposed which aid in the transfer process, primarily through seat and door mechanisms. Most of these arrangements address individuals with moderate to severe disabilities, and in particular wheelchair users. Thus, the arrangements incorporate mechanisms which move the individual completely out of the vehicle. As a result, these mechanisms are very complicated and expensive and are not available for general use.
In Great Britain Patent Application no. 2 088 296, entitled Vehicle Seats, there is disclosed a vehicle seat particularly applicable to individuals with a movement impairment who are confined to wheelchairs. The vehicle seat is mounted on a swivel for pivoting movement about a pivot axis, the swivel being mounted on an arm which, in turn, is pivotally coupled to the door pillar so that the seat can be swung from a position of normal use to a position outside the door opening of the vehicle. The seat pivoting mechanism includes a guide track which ensures that the seat faces inwardly as it moves through the door opening. Providing a pivotally mounted, swiveling seat that is moved along a guide track for orienting the seat in an inwardly facing direction as it moves through the door opening, requires a complicated transport mechanism for the vehicle seat. Also, the pivot is mounted on the sidewall of the vehicle and extends vertically from the roof to the floor of the vehicle along the side of the seat so that the pivot axis is displaced rearwardly and laterally of the swivel mounted seat. The combined swivel and pivot mounting of the vehicle seat results in a movement that is considerably different from the movement encountered by an individual during normal egress from a vehicle. Moreover, this seat does not appear adaptable to provide conventional fore and aft seat adjustment, reclining seat capability, or a seat dumping capability as is required for two door vehicles, and as such, this seat arrangement has limited application.
In Australian patent application no. 82409/82, entitled Vehicle Seat Mounting Mechanism, which was filed on Apr. 7, 1981, there is disclosed an arrangement for moving a seat into and out of a vehicle to provide an individual with better ingress and egress. The arrangement includes a pivot mechanism and a slide rail mechanism which move the seat completely out of the vehicle in a two step operation. The pivot mechanism provides for pivoting the seat 90.degree. about its outboard rear corner to a position within the vehicle where the seat faces outwardly. When the seat is in this outwardly facing position, the slide rail mechanism enables the seat to be slid laterally of the vehicle through the door opening to a position outside of the vehicle. Because two different operations are required to first align the seat with the door opening of the vehicle and to then move the seat through the door opening, this arrangement requires a complicated transport mechanism for the vehicle seat. In addition, because of the two step operation whereby an occupant of the seat is first pivoted within the vehicle and then moved outwardly through the door opening, the motion that is imparted to an individual being transported out of the vehicle is totally different from the movement of an individual during normal egress from the vehicle. Moreover, the seat must be in a specified fore-aft position before it can be pivoted into alignment with the door opening. Consequently, it is generally necessary to readjust the fore and aft travel adjustment whenever the feature is used to facilitate an individual's ingress into or egress from the vehicle.
In both of these seat moving arrangements, the entire seat is transported completely out of the vehicle. Therefore, the seat must be located high enough within the vehicle to clear the rocker as the seat is pivoted outwardly through the door opening, making application of these seat moving arrangements to the driver's seat impractical because of interference between the legs of the driver and the steering wheel, for example. In addition, neither arrangement includes hand grips for use by the occupant of the seat during ingress into or egress from the vehicle or lifting off from the seat.